This is not light painting photography, but…. In this short film, “Silver & Light”, photographer Ian Ruther takes the concept of SOOC (straight out of camera) to a whole new level.

This project was created with the same spirit that america was founded on. Our intentions are to connect everyone in america through the lens of this camera and social networking sites. We can’t do this without you. We want to tell your story and show your city or town through photographs of you, and people you know. As we travel around america looking for people and places to shoot you will be able to keep track of where we are going and help us decide where we go next. Join us in our journey by liking our facebook to get yourself photographed by us.

An extra special thanks to Brandon Rein, Scotty Hoffman and Trevor Atwater.
facebook.com/pages/Ian-Ruhter-Photography/159583283699

ianruhter.tumblr.com/

One of the questions that I get the most here on Light Painting Photography is what tools should I get and where can I get them. I had been working on some ideas, trying different ways of putting a store together to supply the products that light painters’ need. Then a few months back I saw light painting photography’s very own technical genius Michael Ross had already done it! Mike started the website LightPaintingTools.com where he makes some really cools S*!@ for light painters, things like Light Markers, Orb Tools, and RGB Light Wands.

So Mike and I started talking about what he was trying to do and why he started the website.  We have a similar love of light painting photography and a passion for sharing it with the world. Soooooo we teamed up. In the tools section of this site you will now find links to the products offered at LightPaintingTools.com. I will keep you updated with his new tools as they become available! Now get over there and buy something so Mr. Ross can keep creating innovative tools like The Digital Light Wand for the light painting world.

That’s right boys and girls thanks to a find from the great Vicki DaSilva the history of light painting has changed. Sorry Frank Gilbreth but you are no longer the man that created the first light painting images, that title now goes to Étienne-Jules Marey and Georges Demeny who’s work preceded Gilbrith’s by as much as 25 years. The two first met when Demeny enrolled in a physiology course being taught by Marey. They soon became close associates. Together Marey and Demeny established a programme of research, which was to lead to the creation of the ‘Station Physiologique’, which opened in 1882 in the Bois de Boulogne. They developed several photographic techniques to study the movements of everything from humans to horses. In 1889 Demeny attached incandescent bulbs to the joints of an assistant and created what is the first known light painting photograph “Pathological Walk From In Front”. More to come soon……

Light Graffiti pioneer Vicki DaSilva has been video taping some of her photographic exploits over the last few years, here are some of the highlights in a compilation video entitled “Vicki DaSilva Jedi Life”.

A short, five year compilation video of photography shoots featuring corresponding still photographs from 2007-2012 featuring Vicki DaSilva’s signature light graffiti and light painting styles.

The theme for the light painting contest for March-April is to create a light painting photograph incorporating the light painting photography logo (Posted Below). You can print it and make a light stencil, you can light draw it, project it on the moon, draw it with a laser, or anything else you can think of but it must be created in one single exposure using a light painting technique, NOT PHOTOSHOPPED in.

We had really good results with length of last months contest so we are going to also make this contest a little longer,  you have 2 months to come up with something mind blowing….Submit your images to contest@lightpaintingphotography.com by the 21th of April to win your LPP prize pack and a featured post on the website! Please remember to follow the THEME of the contest and resize your images to 600 pixels on the longest side and 72 dpi. If you do not follow the theme of the contest your image will not be accepted, and as always no F#@&*! photoshop. We ran a similar contest last year and light painter Nocturne won with this image…

P.S. The rules have changed a bit so click here to read all about it.

The light painting photography contest series is sponsored by COAST, the greatest flashlight company on earth! Click the banner to check out and support the company that supports our art form!

Recently I got the chance to talk with light drawing pioneer Eric Staller. I had always thought that some of Eric’s early work could be categorized as the first ever LAPP (Light Art Performance Photography) images, I still think I’m right but Eric doesn’t like to be categorized…↓↓↓↓↓ He was doing domes WAY WAY WAY before you.↓↓↓

LPP ∇ It is wonderful to get the chance to pick your brain a bit to see what you were thinking when you created some of your first light drawing images that have inspired a countless number of light painting photographers!

What was your first light drawing image, and can you tell me a little bit about your process and the experience?

ES ∇ ‘Walker Street’ was the first image that I printed. It was a 1-minute ‘sparkler drawing’ I did in front of my loft in lower Manhattan. Each sparkler lasted about a minute, so that was the amount of time I had to make the drawing. I would lock the camera shutter open, light the sparkler and quickly walk down the street, holding the sparkler at curb level, to complete the composition before the sparkler went out. I felt a strong sense of exhilaration, like running the 100-meter dash with a flaming torch! Getting the film back from the lab was even more exhilarating: it was magic, my presence was invisible! There was just this trail of liquid fire. Suddenly I was drunk with the possibilities. I proceeded to outline everything for my photos: cars, trucks, streets, and monuments.

The energy was packed into one-minute performances. I worked through the night and although I was alone and even lonely, my romance for the city was sweet indeed.

LPP ∇ What inspired you to create some of your first light drawings?

ES ∇ I had been doing slide shows, timer –activated installations of slide projections onto gallery walls, or screens suspending in space. They were moving paintings, musically inspired and consisted of a few hundred images that were seen dissolving into one another on the screen. This was many years before computerized multi-media and I remember how disturbing it was when my NY gallery called me to say that one of my slide projectors had jammed! I resolved to compact my choreography into still images, that I printed 30” x 40”. These have since been exhibited worldwide, although at the time most people didn’t know what to make of them.

LPP ∇ Funny you say that, presently when a light painter shows their work people usually think that the image is has been digitally altered. You had exhibited your light painting work worldwide but people at the time didn’t know what to think of it, can you expand on that a little bit. What were some of the reactions then and how do people react differently to it now?

ES ∇ I was represented by an art gallery in NY and when I did this series I thought I would be better represented by a photography gallery. Directors of photo galleries didn’t think what I was doing was photography!! It was thought to be a gimmick, a trick. Now (smart) people know I was ahead of my time!

Digital is way easier! For each of my photographic ideas I would be on location most of a night, and shoot a roll of 36 exposures. To get one winner, or no winner at all. I had to get the roll processed to see if one of these ‘takes’ measured up to what I saw in my mind’s eye.

LPP ∇ Was there a moment when it all clicked or was this series more of a work of trial and error?

ES ∇ I have had many ‘inspired accidents’ in my career but mostly I have a scientific approach to taking my work intellectually further with each artwork.

LPP ∇ What is your favorite light drawing you have ever created?

ES ∇ My next artwork is my favorite!

LPP ∇ Did you work alone or was someone there helping you to create some of your images?

ES ∇ I started working alone but hired an assistant once I received my first grant. Having an assistant enabled me to take longer and more elaborate shots.

LPP ∇ I know that you must have had some interesting encounters roaming the dark streets of New York in the middle of the night with sparklers and camera gear, is there anything you would like to share? Any interesting stories that happened on one of your light drawing shoots?

ES ∇ The city at night was an enchanting place for me. The plazas, bridges, parks and monuments, empty and eerily quiet at night, were dramatic stage sets waiting to be transformed.

Late at night I drove around in a beat-up station wagon, looking for places and ideas to jump out at me. When the moment was right I set up my Nikon on a tripod and planned a choreography with light. At dawn I would go to Fulton Street to watch the fishermen come in, or to the Lower East Side for the first hot bagels of the day.

My dreams in 1977 were taking the forms of fantasy architectures of light. I invented choreographies and volumes of light. I remember being impressed by the architectural uses of the human figure in Fritz Lang’s film ‘Metropolis’ and old Busby Berkeley films, and I began to think of the geometry of my body. By then I found that a 10-minute sparkler was available on special order. I attached one to the end of a broomstick and, using my arm as a compass, scribed arcs overhead as I walked up the middle of the street (Lightunnel).

Light Tunnel

The challenge now was to take it intellectually further with each photo; to wonder what effect this or that choreographic device would produce; and then, to be continually surprised by the result.

For Lightubes I spun the sparkler on the end of a string as I walked toward the camera; then ran back and did it again.

Light Tubes

I mounted 5 sparklers on a broomstick and held it vertically, at arm’s length for the 5-minute exposure Ribbon on Hanover Street.

Ribbon on Hannover Street

It occurred to me more than once that these were performances with light. Crowds of curious garbage men, night watchmen, workaholic Wall Streeters and the homeless gathered to watch the lunatic with the blazing broomstick!

LPP ∇ Prior to creating your own images had you ever seen any of Man Ray’s, Gjon Mili’s, or any other light drawing work, if so what did you think of this work?

ES ∇ I had known of the Picasso/Mili drawings.

LPP ∇ You call your work “Light Drawings” but you also talk about the performances. Are you familiar with the current “Light Art Performance Photography” and if so do you feel some of your early work should fall into this category or something different?

ES ∇ What I was doing was certainly performances with various light sources but it was the image, the end result that I was interested in. I’m not very interested in being categorized.

LPP ∇ You have shifted focus a bit from your light drawing work, do you still create in this medium or were you completed in 1980?

ES ∇ I have shifted more than a bit! I evolved from the photography into computerized light sculpture. My Lightmobile in 1985 was perhaps my most profound personal breakthrough, and the beginning of my ‘urban UFO’ series.

Since then my work has all been performance oriented, and increasingly political. And a lot of my job is manufacturing, promoting and marketing my circular 7-person ConferenceBike. See conferencebike.com

LPP ∇ What do you think of the present state of light painting photography?

ES ∇ It is amazing that it has become this movement, and there is a lot of great energy out there. There are some beautiful images being done, but most of the work has a generic-ness to it. I don’t see that anyone has taken it further than what I did more than 30 years ago.

LPP ∇ Are there any light painting artists that you follow or that ARE impressing you with the work they are producing?

ES ∇ Of all the artists on your site my favorite is LAPP-PRO.

LPP ∇ Do you think light painting has further to go? As one of the light drawing founders what do you think is the next step, or how would you as like to see it evolve?

ES ∇ The art form will certainly continue to evolve, just as more traditional art forms have continued to evolve. As with painting and sculpture, with their long traditions, the real innovations are few and far between. In fact, the easier it is to master a technique, the easier it is to fall into a mannerist sameness that most light painting/drawing falls into. Invention, originality, daring, that’s what I look for in art, and I rarely see it. The artist Christo is one artist that really interests me.

LPP ∇ Do you have any desire to revisit another light drawing series?

ES ∇ I felt that I took it as far as I could and that I was becoming too good at it! The surprise was going out of it and I moved on before I started to repeat myself. I don’t want to ever say never, but I am VERY doubtful that I will go back there.

LPP ∇ Thank you for taking the time to answers some questions it has been great to talking to you.

ES ∇ You can thank me by ordering my book OUT OF MY MIND at outofmymind.com!
There you will find 30 images beautifully reproduced, of these photos, that I did between 1976-80.

Here are the entries for the February light painting photography contest. Everyone PLEASE VOTE in the comment section of the page to pick your top 3 images, the images all have a number in the title (EXAMPLE… IF ONE OF YOUR FAVORITES IS THE IMAGE TITLED “FEBRUARY CONTEST 21” THEN YOU SHOULD PUT THE NUMBER 21 AS ONE OF YOUR CHOICES). This months contest theme was to create a light painting Portrait, meaning that the image must contain a person…. Voting ends on the 1st.
Oh and P.S. Voters that do not include 3 unique choices in their post will not be counted. In other words no 1,1,1, or 5,5,5, or 22,22,22…..Please pick your three favorite IMAGES based on the image alone.

This contest was sponsored by the greatest flashlight company around COAST!